The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Well, the year’s most hotly anticipated sporting event in the world took place in Milwaukee on Saturday night. And it was kind of a bust. Yao wasn’t particularly effective, Yi was pretty bad, and both of them got dinged up in the game (Yao tweaking his ankle and Yi hurting his shoulder a little bit).

There might be a silver lining to the Yi injury, though — while it doesn’t seem to be anything serious, maybe it will give the Bucks an excuse to rest him for a couple of games, as his play has become worse and worse over the last few weeks (1-10 shooting last night, posting a miserable, team-killing 0.4504 IPM over his last 8 games).

The Rockets game should finally put to rest the idea that the Bucks are better without Michael Redd. Redd is just as capable of allowing 33 points to Tracy McGrady as Royal Ivey proved to be, but at least Redd wouldn’t only score two points himself. One thing I couldn’t understand was why Krystkowiak kept putting progressively smaller defenders on McGrady. Yi had him for a couple of posessions, then Ivey, then Williams, then Bell. Even when they doubled him I kept seeing what seemed like a steady stream of midgets running at T-Mac. Meanwhile, bigger players like Simmons and Mason were cruising along after Shane Battier. I realize that Battier is a perfectly good player who can kill you with his 3-point shooting and ability to crash the boards, but don’t you have to try to make him beat you instead of McGrady? Without Redd the McGrady matchup was a no-win situation, but it sure looked bad to see McGrady getting 4-6 inches on his defenders all night.

All things considered, this wasn’t that bad a game for the Bucks. Houston is a better team and came in on an 11-3 winning streak. For all my complaining, the Bucks really had no good option as far as trying to stop McGrady, so that was a big Rockets advantage. Considering that the Bucks shot 39%, allowed 50% shooting, were outrebounded by 13 and had to counter McGrady/Battier with Ivey/Bell/Simmons/Mason — losing by eight isn’t all that bad. At least Andrew Bogut slightly outplayed Yao.